Birmingham Diocese About to Forge a New Way

A strong rumour suggests that Birmingham archdiocese stands on the edge of the most creative restructuring of its Catholic schools for decades. 

There is a long tradition of creativity and innovation by school leaders in diocesan schools. That is not a rumour but fact. Encouraged by Pope Francis to be a truly listening church, the impetus is already there for a major step forward in a Church that defines itself as a Church in mission and operates in an atmosphere of synodality. 

If that isn’t on the edge of a creative breakthrough, what is? 

Faced with mounting mental health issues, absenteeism, crippled by a shortage of teachers and under-funding of schools, in the context of poverty, hungry children, families and communities torn apart by austerity, leaders and schools across the diocese are seeking new ways of moving forward. 

The creativity of school leaders responding to the freedom to innovate will lead the breakthrough in expressing and building a new concept of Catholic schools.

That sounds like the edge of a new system appearing. 

Fifteen, or maybe thirteen Multi Academy Companies have shown by now that clumping schools together based on geographical links alone is not the fresh face of Catholic education. 

The king’s new clothes are only a rearrangement of threadbare items.   

Some have regarded the simplistic ploy of grouping schools into MACs according to geographical locations based on the AA Route Planner as a clever move to play for time. It allowed leaders to identify family groupings that would best provide an innovative, forward-looking, highly successful education for all of their students so contributing actively to the gospel mission of the diocese. 

Some of the new grouping being considered, it is claimed, are shared charisms, common socio-economic communities, degrees of deprivation in their catchments, research and developmental schools, those catering for PNEWS (pupils nobody else wants) and even stages of delivery of the diocesan requirements to preach the gospel through the very high quality of education provided.

It is argued by some that the designers of the initial MACs carefully built in a self-destruct trigger by the ease with which these geographical groupings could be turned into a bureaucratic model. There is little evidence that such was the case.

Although, it has to be admitted that the pharisaical elements in such a model would inevitably lead to the demise of current groupings, serving as it does the needs of those at the top of a hierarchical pyramid rather than resolutely focussing on those at the bottom, as demanded by the gospel. 

Surely nobody thought the initial grouping of schools into MACs using the AA Route Planner model was the extent of the limitless creativity and boundless imagination of Catholic school leaders and teachers. 

Evidence has to be considered. It is time to move on, it is rumoured. 

The booster rocket is jettisoned once it delivers its payload.

The diocese is on the edge of ‘harnessing the expertise of these leaders and schools’. DES expressed intentions. These are experienced professionals steeped in schools and education (apart from a few MAC leaders who aren’t), who, by expertise and experience, show themselves to be responsive, boundlessly imaginative, and capable of setting solutions to even the most difficult of problems. 

The spirit of synodality will expect nothing less than a wholesale exploration of ways to regroup schools and institutions. 

The discussions will make use of many strands. 

By integrating support from parents and parishes into their efforts, the teachers, the staff, and students will devise new structures that are not constrained by the current model, nor by the limitations of isolated localism or hierarchical dominance. 

Redeploying the remaining priests, working with parents, staff and students to develop a new concept of Catholic education will be key steps. 

The new practice will not depend on place, nor be regulated and constrained by severe limitations of 9 o’clock opening with 3.30 o’clock closing. 

Education will be in the community and in community institutions, in learning and attendance hubs and not be confined only to those buildings called schools.

The days of mass education when, like a Lowry factory painting, 1000+ pupils flowed through the school gates in the morning and out again in the afternoon will be over. 

Enrich the mix with the experience of flexible learning, blended learning, specialised learning hubs and top-class international experts available on-line. 

Making use of technology will create programs with unique application for each student. 

Building in the tracking, monitoring and coaching of all the students will achieve maximum impact. 

Maximise the use of digital learner ID.

The establishment of Catholic PNEWs (pupils nobody else wants) will demonstrate once more the agility of the Church to meet the most urgent of needs.

The practical impact of synodality will open a new field for exploration and experimentation. 

The associations of highly effective Birmingham Primary and Secondary heads groups over many years demonstrated the power that came from working together.

That sounds like the leading edge of a new system. 

The rumour promotors suggest that any day now we should expect a tsunami of publications, borrowed from the CES and including the guidance coming from Rome, laying down the groundwork for understanding what Catholic education stands for today in preparation for the future, rather than rebranding what it was twenty years ago. 

We should be creating the future, not curating the past.

The new head of education for the diocese, barely in post, has arrived at an opportune time to lead a very different way of thinking and working. 

Merely modifying a few touches here and there will only suggest mutton dressed up as lamb.

We stand on the edge. 

Some see it as the lip of a precipice and will ask to go back. 

School leaders will see it as the launching pad for the future. 

(c) Ted Dunphy

22/02/2024